Change
by sakura-dream
Summary: Axel thinks about thinking, and memory, and change.


Why am I writing this? I have to head to work soon, I have lines to be memorizing, midterms to study for, and I don't know. I just felt like tapping this thing out I guess. Butt I think its probably because I look at how many hits there are to axel/riku fanfiction and it seems to me, that this is more than just some crack pairing. The two just compliment each other, which is odd considering I used to be a big riku/sora fan but I'm getting off topic.

If I even had a topic to begin with.

Aside from that, this fic is pretty random. I don't know if I like it yet.

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Heartless-ness. The state of not having a heart or the capacity to feel. Lacking in emotion or substantial ability to place value in someone or something.

Axel used to identify with it. He doesn't think too much about why or how because to Axel, spending too much time looking at the past is just a big waste of the time you have now. At the same time though, he admits it can be fun to see where all you've been. It's the only surefire way to gauge change after all.

He settles into leaning over the counter, looking out the window at everything but not focusing on any one thing in particular. Fall has always been his favorite season because even though, Riku pointed out, that the leaves were dying, it was still pretty to look at. In the summer it was different. Sure everything was alive and green, but it wasn't anything special to behold- not like now, when the colors are vibrant enough to stop him in his tracks to take the time to really look.

The floor is chilly. He can feel it seeping out of the wood and into his socks but doesn't care enough to grab slippers. Making cocoa sounds better anyway. A glance at the clock reminds him that his roommate/friend/companion will be home soon so Axel hums some tuneless song as he sets about making two cups of said cocoa.

Again, the past isn't usually something Axel devotes too much thought to, at least, not nearly as much as Riku tends to, but on occasion it sneaks up on him. 

Like remembering how he'd come to even take a shine to the boy in the first place, and remembering how Riku used to pin his hair up in messy-haphazard ways that still managed to look ridiculously elegant. It's a shame he only does it when he's studying but he always tells Axel its because he can't think straight with his hair in his face. Axel frowns slightly and tries to recall what his original train of thought had been- before he'd gotten sidetracked by remembering Riku's hair.

Yes, that was it, some research assignment about human emotion or something, because that's where he saw Riku with his pinned up hair and nose in a book. He thinks it may have started because he'd been with Roxas when they saw some girl crying in the library.

Axel takes the steaming cups and adds the cocoa powder, dumping nearly twice the normal amount in his own. He hates watery cocoa and now regrets using all the marshmallows to make smores on the kitchen stove.

No, he doesn't really care too much about trying to remember how or why he and Roxas got to that library because that isn't the important part anyway. The important part came when he and the blond boy had begun discussing heartless-ness. But remembering Roxas had always been synonymous for remembering the times when Axel had been the most conflicted over believing that he too lacked the capacity to feel, and grasping at straws to explain why Roxas' presence always seemed to suggest otherwise.

When Riku had interrupted them…

It was strange all things considered, since Riku hardly spoke to anyone, least of all a pair of strangers but in looking back on it, Axel figured that they must have been annoying the hell out of him to cause that sort of reaction. He vaguely recalls Roxas' eyes gleaming with what might have been called competition. In the days he'd never questioned it, the days that he and Roxas would retort with a comment about how some individuals really were heartless and the benefits thereof. He thinks he remembers being angry, or annoyed or maybe just bothered by the intrusion but he isn't certain because that isn't what sticks out in his memory. What sticks out is the way Riku just looked at them, with something that wavered between pity and understanding. It was the way Riku waited patiently for Roxas to finish his point before he answered. What Axel remembers, is how Riku's words changed the entire course of his life.

"A heart is just a symbol. Its your brain that forms ties to people and tells you someone is important to you. Since your brain works enough for you to form sentences, you're more than capable of feeling the same things as everyone else."

He remembers that when he and Roxas had left that day, they never spoke of it again.

When Axel hears the front door open and shut quietly, he doesn't fight the smile that spreads all too easily across his lips. Riku has never been a particularly loud person, but sometimes Axel has to marvel at the way he manages to make him see things no one else had the ability to explain.

It takes him a few minutes to reach the kitchen, but Riku is a creature of habit, and Axel is learning how to be patient. When he does manage to reach the kitchen, Axel feels his presence more than anything else. He thinks its strange how comfortable they've grown with each other, but doesn't give the thought more than a passing acknowledgement.

"Hey, welcome home. I made cocoa." He offers, and though he says nothing, sea colored eyes study him for a moment while Axel arches an eyebrow at the scrutiny. "Yeah?" Those silver stands sway when he shakes his head. "You looked different, that's all." Axel gives a careless shrug and goes back to looking out the window before he answers "Nah, no big. Just thinkin' about stuff, that's all."

Riku is cradling the warm cup with pale fingers and though he doesn't look to confirm it, Axel can hear the smirk in his voice. "You can think?"

Axel wonders if its his imagination of if Riku's already snarky personality has been magnified since they've been living together. "Hey now-" He nudges the other's shoulder playfully and Riku smiles before nodding in the direction of the window that Axel has been staring at. "Its pretty out there."

Axel considers it. He knows that earlier that morning he had decided that he is not a particularly deep thinker because he prefers to trust his instincts. Because he thinks that thinking too much just gives you more time to build walls to hide behind instead of being able to just live. But now he's started thinking a lot more, and he thinks it might not be so bad. So Axel gives up the window he's been staring at and turns to face Riku, locking eyes with the other before answering with a smile.

"Its pretty in here too."


End file.
